Walt Disney's Avatar

Pocahontas meets Avatar in this successful mash-up.

A Better Look At The New Freddy

Anyone who reads AWASOS regularly - or even semi-regularly - knows I'm not really a big fan of Hollywood's recent obsession with remakes. The reasons are pretty obvious: there's been precious few of them that are even half-way decent let alone good, and most are cinematic abortions and pale imitations. I have a lot of doubts about the upcoming A Nightmare on Elm Street remake - chiefly because the original pretty much nailed it and doesn't need remaking - but from

the trailer the movie seems to be a pretty faithful re-telling and I'm intrigued to see Jackie Earle Hayley's take on Freddy Krueger. The iconic villain has previously only been played by one man, Robert Englund (right) and Hayley's an interesting choice to replace him. Hayley was the only thing I liked in the bloated Watchmen (other then excellent opening scene) and he's also played villains (Little Children) and psycho's (Shutter Island) very convincingly so the new Elm Street, despite my nagging suspicion of it's inherent suckiness, is on my radar as a flick I want to check out anyway.

However, when the trailer came out, I was left quite underwhelmed by the voice of Freddy Krueger (though it's been suggested that they were tweaking it for final release) and the burn makeup look more like Jim Carrey as The Grinch then it did like the burned scar-faced makeup that Robert Englund sported in the original series. Still looks a little Grinch-like to me.

'Showgirls 2' Trailer. Wow. Just Wow.

Wow. This is pretty amazing. So apparently they've made a sequel to the so-bad-it's-almost-good-but-no-it-still-really-sucks sexploitation flick Showgirls, which famously starred Elizabeth Berkley from the teen sitcom 'Saved by the Bell.' (That's her licking a pole on the left. Yes, that's a still from the film. Here's a little tip for any aspiring actresses out there reading the blog. If you've been offered a movie role, and you think it might be a breakout role for you, use this little rule of thumb. If the film requires you to lick a stripper pole while wearing a thong, pass on the movie. Trust me on this one.) This flick was such a stinker it simultaneously launched and ended Berkley's film career. But clearly Showgirls looks like Raging Bull compared to this sequel which seems improbably, hilariously, amateurishly bad. Just check out this trailer. Amazingly, the film allegedly had a $25 million budget, but it looks to have the production values of low-end porn film or a highschool English project where the teacher lets the kids use the video camera and do a "presentation" instead of handing in a paper. Honestly, if I were told this was shot on VHS, I wouldn't be suprised. It's that level of bad. The trailer - which runs over four minutes and just features shots of naked bimbos with a comically bad musical score (think late night phone sex commercial) with no semblence of the plot for this sequel looks so hilariously low-budget and poorly made that this very well could be the worst sequel ever made. Bad news, Troll II, there just might be a new Sheriff in town! Please, I urge you not to give up on this trailer due to it's crappiness, cause it's really worth watching the whole thing just to see when the title sequence comes up. I nearly spit out my drink when I saw the titles. Totally worth it.

Neil Labute Directs Promo Short for PS3 Game

Hitting stores yesterday was a rather unique Playstation 3 title called Heavy Rain. I had a chance last year to fly to Los Angeles and check out a level of the then still under development title and was immediately impressed by its incredibly cinematic presentation. The portions of the game I saw were very creatively directed, and the narrative of the game, which focuses on the hunt for a serial killer through the eyes of multiple inter-connected characters also seemed quite intriguing and carefully presented. Even the poster promoting the game treated it like a movie, right down to listing the "virtual" actors that "starred" in the game. Unfortunately, I haven't got a chance to see much more of the game (even though Sony sent me an advance copy) because I've been in Whistler for the last month working on the Olympics but while looking for more info on the title (and pouting that I wasn’t playing it) I stumbled upon this very intriguing – and unique - promotion for the title I found over at IGN.

Neil Labute, a filmmaker that would be awfully low on my list of people I'd expect to make a film promoting a video game, has directed a short called How Far Would You Go? which explores one of the themes of the game, chiefly, how far would you go for someone you loved? The curious film features film directors like Peter Bogdonavich (in a piece promoting a video game!) Nicholas Roeg, Stephen Frears as well as actors like Samuel L. Jackson. This is easily the strangest promotion for a video game (which it doesn't even seem to realize it is) that you'll ever find. Kudos to the PlayStation team for getting this incredibly unique marketing film done - though somehow I suspect that the kernel of the idea that launched this project and the end result are very different creatures.

Bruce Willis: Dying Hard

Bruce Willis, while promoting the new Kevin Smith buddy flick Cop Out told MTV that not only is Die Hard 5 in the works, he expects it to be shooting next year. Most film series get worse as they go on - in fact, I think it's safe to say they all do - but the Die Hard franchise is definitely one of diminishing returns. A fifth entry sounds like a horrible idea; the fourth film, Live Free and Die Hard seemed totally disconnected from any other film in the series beyond the presence of Willis and the fact he was playing a cop named John McClane.

The charm of the first film was its one man against the world premise; the entire story being confined to one location, where they are trapped and; above all, that the character of John McClane was just a regular man. At the time the original came out, action heroes were hulking steroid cases who had superhuman strength, never felt pain and never seemed to ever be in any danger whatsoever. Die Hard was a totally different creature. Willis' McClane took a beating in the film, always seemed vulnerable, and managed to get by using his wits as a street smart cop.

By the fourth entry in the series, all of those things were abandoned or forgotten. He was no longer one man working alone, now, like in the third entry, he's given a useless sidekick. The claustrophobic location has been replaced by a story that sprawls not just over multiple locations but multiple states. And the regular man is long gone, replaced by a super cool cop who never, even for a minute, seems vulnerable or even remotely in danger, even when he's being chased by an apache helicopter down a city street. He actually spends the whole movie being almost too cool to be on the screen and spends more time squinting then vintage Clint Eastwood. (I'm positive that Bruce Willis thinks squinting equals tough.)

Most movie franchises are quite clearly about pumping cash for the studio first then making a good movie second, but in the case of Die Hard, it seems blatantly obvious that they feel the Die Hard title and the presence of Bruce Willis is all that is required on their end. The third entry in the series, Die Hard With A Vengeance, is where they started to abandon all of the qualities that made the John McClane character different from other action heroes, and it's no surprise to learn that they used a screenplay that was originally written as a Brandon Lee action flick called Simon Says. Instead of writing a sequel that continued the character and the story from the first two movies, they took a script that was lying around the studio (and after it was rejected as a Lee vehicle, it was later adapted to be Lethal Weapon 4; then rejected, before finally being used as a Die Hard installment) and used it instead. This is not exactly the recipe for delivering a sequel of quality that shows respect for the earlier entries in the series. The studio, however, didn't seem to have an issue with it and for the fourth entry, they did the same thing and used a screenplay for a stand alone film with slight modifications. It definitely shows, let's pass on Die Hard 5.

Well Deserved Honor

The annual Academy Awards ceremony is something I've become less and less interested in in recent years, despite the fact that I'm an avid follower of cinema. This year, the Academy, in it's inifinite dimmness, decided to make the awards even less relevent by doubling the amount of films nominated for Best Picture. What's the result of this shamelessly commercial descion? Crap like The Blind Side is now a "Best Picture Nominee." People are always suprised when I tell them that I don't watch the Academy Awards, but this year I planned on at the very least watching the intro because Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts intrigued me. Well, now it looks like I'll be sticking around for a bit, at least, because Deadline Hollywood has revealed that a tribute to late filmmaker John Hughes is planned for the evening. Usually a montage runs of all of the industry people who've passed away, but Hughes will get his own segment on the telecast which is expected to involve former cast members from his past films, which, it's worth noting, include both of the hosts (Martin, of course, starred in Planes, Trains & Automobiles and Baldwin played a bit part in She's Having a Baby.)

There are other filmmakers who's work I admire more then Hughes; who was more blessed as a writer then he was as a director; but there's nobody can boast a resume of work that touched me and affected me more then the work of John Hughes. An Oscar night tribue is a well deserved honor. As an aside, there's an interesting write up on Hughes and his work in the new issue of Vanity Fair.

Best. Movie Title. Ever.

Move over Snakes on a Plane, there's a new movie that can lay claim to the honor of Best Movie Title Ever. Legendary b-movie director Roger Corman has revealed his next project and it's called Sharktopus. Half shark, half octopus, all awesome. The plot - as if matters - will see the US military genetically engineering hybrid sharktopusses. Why would they do this, you ask? Well, to combat Somali Pirates of course! If you're thinking to yourself, wouldn't the gunships they US military already have work infinitely better then a genetically mutated sharktopus would; then let me just say this to you: shut up, you're ruining it. Here's where the script throws a major curve ball at you. Instead of the sharktopusses dutifuly patroling international waters decimating Somali pirate ships, instead, something goes horribly wrong and the sharktopusses run wild! Didn't see that coming, did you?

Please Please Please!

As a huge fan of Martin Scorsese, I'm always excited when he's got a new flick coming out, and I'm particularily psyched about Shutter Island because it's getting such good buzz right now, but I can't help but look ahead to his next project. Despite how much I've enjoyed his colloborations with Leonardo Di Caprio, I'd like to see him team with his long time partner in crime Robert De Niro again. De Niro, who's career has been in the toliet for well over a decade, could really use the career-boost (as I recently discussed) so I was very pleased to hear that Scorsese discussed a new project with him in the works while promoting Island. Scorsese, who last worked with DeNiro on 1995's mobster flick Casino, will not only reteam, but they're going to return to world of gangster flicks. He told Reuters "Bob De Niro and I are talking about something that has to do with that world. We're working on something like that, but it's from the vantage point of older men looking back."

A couple of years ago rumours surfaced that the two were working on an adaptation of "I Heard You Paint Houses," a true-crime book that chronicles the life of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, a mob-assassin with a lenghty resume of rubouts alleged to include Jimmy Hoffa. The title, by the way, refers to mobspeak for "I heard you do contract killings." It's kind of frowned upon in the underworld - where wiretaps are not uncommon - to talk openly about whacking people so the phrase "I heard you paint houses" was subbed in. All I can say is sign me up, 'cause despite going to the well multiple times together in this genre, the results of have been so strong I'd love to see the two of them take another crack at this world. Afterall, the last time De Niro played an Irish mobster was Goodfellas, and that turned out pretty damn well.

Creepy Game Show of My Youth

'Just Like Mom' was a crappy Canadian game show that ran in the first half of the 1980's hosted be Fergie Olver - a horrible sportscaster known for his annoying catch phrase "How 'bout those Toronto Blue Jays!" who co-hosted the show with his wife, who was forced to sit back and smile while he creeped on the guests. This above montage does an excellent job of illustrating what a truly creepy man Olver was.

It was recently announced that the show will be making a comeback - sans the dead Olver for obvious reasons - under the new title "Just Like Mom... and Dad!" I suspect the re-jigged version will remove the creepy desperate to kiss little girls angle the 80's incarnation boasted.

A Tale of Two Jonah's

The trailer has come out for Get Him to the Greek, the sequel/spinoff of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and it doesn't look too bad. It helps, certainly, that I'm a fan of both Russell Brand and Jonah Hill; so I guess it's not a big stretch that this trailer looks pretty decent to me. But while I'm looking forward to checking this flick out, I'm definitely a little puzzled by the casting in this movie. Brand returns playing the character he originated in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, British rocker Aldous Snow, lead singer of the fictional band Infant Sorrow. This is a part Brand was born to play. I briefly saw Brand in Los Angeles a few years back when he hosted the MTV Video Awards and I was covering the event, and as he sauntered through the media tent - and I'm not choosing that verb to be cute, it's truly the only way to describe how he walks - he truly has adopted the rock star persona. I personally found his scenes to be the funniest in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and when word came of a spin-off featuring his rock star character I was on board. Shortly after it was confirmed that Jonah Hill would be co-starring as the put upon record label lackey taxed with the job of having to escort Brand's character from London to Los Angeles's Greek Theatre. This, to me, sounded like a good idea because the interaction between the two actors in Sarah Marshall was truly funny stuff; with Hill playing an awkward, adoring fan that Aldous Snow had little or no time for.

Here's where it gets weird. Hill, in Get Him To the Greek isn't playing the same character he played in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, instead of playing Matthew, his character from Sarah Marshall, he's now playing someone named Aaron Greenberg. It seems very odd to me to spin-off one character form the first film, but then cast the other lead with an actor from that same movie, but in a different role. It's even stranger when you factor in how easy it would have been to make them the same characters. Aldous Snow, in Sarah Marshall, never paid any attention whatsoever to Jonah's character, so it wouldn't have required much clever writing to make it like they'd never met before, and the Matthew character was a wanna-be musician so it wouldn't have been a stretch in anyway to suggest that he moved back to the mainland to get a job at a record label. Additionally, as a huge fan of Aldous Snow and Infant Sorrow, it also would have been pretty logical that he would have landed at the same label as his hero, and as you'll see in the trailer, it's his character that pitches the idea of a ten year reunion concert at the Greek Theatre for Aldous Snow. Literally it would have taken one very brief scene to set up his new job, and a comical moment where Aldous clearly doesn't remember their brief meeting in Hawaii. Seems very strange to me that they choose not to do this and went in a direction that will surely confuse fans. I suspect many will think Hill is playing the same character and will wonder why there's no mention of their previous interactions in Hawaii.

Click here for the official website: gethimtothegreek

Films of the 2000's

Saw this at /Film and had to share it. Put together by Paul Proulx, (who runs an excellent website, Bennett Media) this roughly seven minute montage looks back on the films of the past decade. The funny thing is, watching this, it occured to me that it was a better decade then I remembered for cinema. Proulx does an excellent job of selecting clips, and, like all of his projects, he really uses music quite well. Defintiely worth checking out.

What is Jay Leno Thinking?

Here's perhaps the strangest of yesterdays Super Bowl ads. I find this ad incredibly puzzling; but perhaps it speaks volumes about the incredible amount of damage Jay Leno has done to his reputation in the recent weeks regarding the ousting of Conan O'Brien as the host of 'The Tonight Show.' Leno - who will once again go head to head with David Letterman for late night supremacy - appears in a commercial for 'The Late Show with David Letterman?' Why would he do this? Letterman has spewed nothing but venom regarding Leno on his show recently, even saying "What you are seeing right now is classic Jay Leno" and went on to say how pleased he was that the public was getting to see what Jay is "really like." After these remarks, Leno then does a commercial for his rival; and a man who clearly doesn't respect him? On top of that, he appears with Oprah, which instantly brings to mind his PR-nightmare interview with Oprah where he came across as arrogant, dim-witted and an unsympathetic to Conan O'Brien and the whole ordeal. I have no clue what he's thinking to do this, other then perhaps he's been advised that it would make him look like a good sport. I think he looks like a moron.

You Can't Beat Marty

This is an interesting clip from this past weekend at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. Several directors took to the stage for a Q & A and Quentin Tarantino shared a great story about Brian DePalma and Martin Scorsese (check out the clip above.)

The 1970's, for American cinema, was an absolute heyday. Coming up within a few years of each other were Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese. The era is chronicled in the excellent book 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,' and I can only imagine the competitiveness that must have grown between these directors. Coppola brings out the Godfather films, then Spielberg drops Jaws, then Scorsese releases Taxi Driver, Lucas delivers Star Wars, and so on and so on.

For a few other clips of Tarantino at the Fest (it must have been an interesting panel, I see Quentin is seated next to The Hangover director Todd Phillips!) follow the link.

"Aliens" The Rap

This is why I love the internet. Here's a rap song the details that plot of the 1986 James Cameron flick Aliens. And when I say details, I do mean details. This is a ten minute rap that really, thoroughly recaps the movie. While I applaud the nerdy attention to detail that made this thing ten minutes long, I should also point out that at ten minutes, it's really too long for me to actually watch the whole thing. The smile goes away at around the three minute mark and I felt confident that I got the gist of it. That being said, I love seeing shit like this and thinking of that moment of inception. "Hey, what if I wrote a rap about Aliens? That would be awesome!" I think it's probably a very small handful of people that would have that thought, and a much, much smaller group within that group that would actually do it. God bless whoever the crazy bastard is that created this. It's bizarre shit like this that makes the internet great. Well, this and free pornography.

A tip of the cap to Johnny Hockin for bringing this nonsense to my attention.

'Avatar' Ends Its Run

We all knew Avatar couldn't dominate the box-office forever, but I would never have guessed the movie that would finally put an end to its dominant run would be the weepy chick flick Dear John. Avatar has been the box-office champ every week since its Christmas release until this weekend, when Dear John dethroned it. The sappy love story, starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried will now be the answer to a super nerdy trivia question. But here's the cool part: now you know the answer, which will pretty much impress no one. You're welcome.

Fave Five Chick Flicks... For Dudes

So this week on 'Movie Night', MTV's new movie show, we counted down the top five chick flicks that dudes could enjoy; in honor of the release of Dear John, a definite chick flick starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, brought to us by the guy who wrote The Notebook, just in case you were doubting it's chick flick-ness. Check it out above, but also worth checking out, cause its really quite funny, is the interview that Jessi Cruickshank, from 'The Aftershow,' did wtih the cast of Dear John. Check that out, below.

Hope for Kevin Smith's 'Cop Out'

I had high hopes for Kevin Smith's Cop Out (previously titled A Couple of Dicks) because I was intrigued by Smith directing someone else's script (for the first time in his career) and the cast of Tracy Morgan - who I am huge fan of - and Bruce Willis. And then... the trailer came out. And the trailer wasn't funny. And, perhaps most interestingly, the trailer made no mention whatsoever of Kevin Smith being the director of the film. During his Mirmax days, Smith being the director was the bulk of the marketing for the movie. His "View Askew" production shingle (which he's apparently shelved) brought it's own built-in audience, and that audience knew exactly what they were getting - Smith's trademark brand of raunchy humor with heart. (A formula that Judd Apatow has been doing better - and more successfully - for the last few years.) To see a Kevin Smith movie being marketed without any mention of Smith was quite telling. But to see a Kevin Smith movie trailer without laughing was much, much worse.

Smith has always been such an accessible filmmaker; he's seemed to be acutely aware of how cool it is to be a Hollywood filmmaker and he's let his let his fans into his world very graciously from the beginning. Smith does his popular speaking tours; which have spawned the Evening with Kevin Smith DVD series; where he shares every tidbit of his life and his work. (There's some absolute gold in these too. His story about working with producer Jon Peters on a screenplay for what was then to be Superman Reborn is hilarious and his lengthy description of his time in Prince's employ is an instant classic.) He also has popular podcasts (which he's re-branded as smodcasts) which are very funny - and very personal - and he's written books that share every detail; down to his bowel movements and jerk sessions; of his his life. It's hard not be a fan of a guy as humble, honest and gracious as Smith.

All of that being said, it's been a while since he made a good film. Jersey Girl was sappy and trite, and his most recent effort, Zack and Miri Make a Porno just wasn't funny despite the excellent cast that included Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson and Elizabeth Banks. His earlier stuff, had a raw, gritty charm, but as the years passed, more and more his screenplays seemed to be derivative. Every character started to sound the same and it seemed he was more interested in having characters talk about filthy things then actually telling stories. Perhaps most troubling was the fact that his characters always seemed to be angry. There was always a bubbling resentment at play, and they just weren't fun people to spend two hours with anymore.

So when word came out that he was going to step behind the camera and shoot a film from someone else's script, I thought it was a wise move for Smith. There's no question he knows funny. If you watch Clerks, Chasing Amy or Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, it's quite clear he has comedic chops. If he could sign on to direct a funny script and sprinkle in his own funny and punch up the dialogue where need be, it could be a great combination and it could jump-start his directing career. But the first trailer for Cop Out arrived with a thud.

But fear not! The red band trailer has arrived, and this is always where Smith shines. Nobody wants to see a PG-13 Kevin Smith flick, so the "Restricted" trailer would show more of the traditional Smith stuff... but would it be better? The answer, I'm pleased to report, is that it is dramatically better. There's hope yet for a Kevin Smith comeback of sorts.

Check out the original, unfunny trailer, below:

Calvin and Hobbes: 15 Years Later

Without a doubt, 'Calvin and Hobbes' is my favorite comic strip of all time; and I was amazed to discover that it's been fifteen years since the creator, Bill Watterson, stopped drawing it. At the time, I was amazed that he would stop because he was truly at the peak of his powers. 'Calvin and Hobbes' existed for ten years, and the quality never wavered, but Watterson felt he had said all he had to say and simply walked away from it all. It's impossible to criticize a man for not milking his property, and instead opting to go out on top; but at the time, it was hard to see it that way. Watterson is essentially the John Hughes of comic strips. One day he simply decided he had done all he wanted to do and he just switched it all off never to be heard from again. Watterson retreated from the spotlight, never worked another strip and declined all offers to merchandise his creation as well as shunning the press; who made multiple attempts to contact him over the years. Perhaps because of the fifteen year anniversary of his "retirement" Watterson has broken that silence and has finally agreed to talk about his creation and his choice to walk away from it. The creator, who recently moved to Cleveland of all places, granted an interview to the local paper, The Plain Dealer.

Check out the interview here. At the end, there's a link to another article about Watterson.

The Blind Side Nominated For Best Picture

So.... How's this new thing where the Academy nominates ten films for best picture working out for you?

This is just sad.

Zooey Gets In Bed With HBO

If it wasn't for HBO - and perhaps my pay cheque - I think I might have already given up on television. The bulk of the TV shows I watch - with the exception of NBC's Thursday night comedy lineup - are HBO content. There's just something more real about the freedom cable TV offers; the freedom that gives the storytellers the ability to create characters that behave like actual human beings. You know, people that swear, fuck, smoke pot and live lives without a laughtrack. I'm already eagerly anticipating one of their upcoming projects, the Martin Scorsese produced 'Boardwalk Empire' (my original thoughts here) and now Deadline: Hollywood is reporting that HBO's made a deal with Zooey Deschanel, an actress I find utterly charming, to bring the notorious tell-all biography of infamous groupie Pamela Des Barres to the small screen as a television series.

Des Barres spent the late 60's and the bulk of the 70's being passed around like a joint by a litany of bands ranging from the Rolling Stones to the Byrds to Zeppelin to The Who, and she spilled all the stories in her memoir, 'I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie.' Deschanel, who will executive produce the series as well as starring in it, should have some interesting insights to offer as a musician herself. Deschanel also co-starred in Almost Famous, the best movie ever made about music in my opinion, and certainly the best flick about groupies. The world of the groupie is an interesting place to set a television series. Each season could see her spending time with new bands, bringing new characters and fresh blood to the show. No word on when this pilot will see the light of day, but it's definitely a project I will be monitoring.

Fave Five Revenge Flicks

MTV News recently launched an all movie show, Movie Night, which airs each Thursday at the strange - or should I say unique? - time slot of 6:26pm. This past week on Movie Night, in honor of Mel Gibson's new revenge flick Edge of Darkness, we put together our 'Top Five Fave Revenge Flicks.' Really, it was just an excuse to get Jaws: The Revenge on our show, but whatever, it was worth it. It's been well over twenty years since that movie was released, but I still remember very clearly reading in Fangoria magazine about a fourth Jaws film being put into production, then, I read in stunned silence as they gave a quick plot summary: Amazingly, in this movie, the shark is getting revenge. The shark is actively searching for the Brodie family and systematically picking them off. In the movie, they relocate from the States to the Caribbean.... and the shark follows them. It's also worth pointing out that both of Jaws and Jaws 2 end with the villainous shark being killed. So in this movie, a totally different shark - the mother perhaps? - is stalking and killing the family. Absolutely amazing, and, without question, this movie has the best tagline ever. Check it out below.